ROCKFORD — Ray Clark’s four cats help control rats and snakes next to the mobile home he’s lived in on Blackhawk Island since 1967.

He blames the critter problem on neighboring lots with high grasses and weeds that are being returned to natural habitats. There used to be five times more than the 40 or so residents who live on the island today, and they occupied homes on the now-empty lots on the 54-acre, southwest-side island. Last year alone, more than two dozen residences were demolished after Winnebago County bought flood-prone properties with federal money.

But even though Clark’s cats have been bitten a few times and the county has long said it would like the island to become a park someday, Clark, 62, is among some remaining residents of this worn neighborhood who have no plans to ever leave. That might prove difficult since Clark said the Winnebago County Health Department recently condemned his property calling it “not fit to live in.”

“I am staying here,” he said Friday, adding that with regard to his property, he is “working on fixing it up.” A health department spokeswoman on Friday said she could not immediately provide information about any condemnations on the island.

Winnebago County razed 29 structures on the island last year using about $1.5 million in federal money, some of which also purchased 61 lots there. Residents applied for voluntary buyouts after severe flooding there from the Rock River in 2008, though some flooding occurs every year on the island.

Now, two-thirds of the island is owned by the county or Chicago Rockford International Airport, said Chris Dornbush, director of Winnebago County Development Services. In 1997, there were 63 homes on the island. Eight houses and 20 mobile homes remain, though no one is living in eight of the structures, Dornbush said.

Remaining residents say there are fewer people living on Blackhawk Island now than they can remember. About 200 people lived there at its peak population a few decades ago.

In July, Clark, a mechanic, said he likes living on Blackhawk Island because “it’s peaceful; I don’t have to worry about nothin’.” An old paddle boat that he said “has never been used” sits on his property. “I keep it here just in case.” He said Friday that he and his wife, Pamela Clark, were still staying in their home, but his daughter, Tashia Clark, 33, and 13-year-old granddaughter who had lived with them, have been staying with a relative since the condemnation. Clark’s 86-year-old father lives across the street, which, like most streets on the island, is laden with potholes. “No trespassing” and “Keep out” signs affixed to trees and mobile homes are nearly as plentiful as the potholes.

Page 2 of 3 - When — and if — the day comes that no one is left on the island tucked away in trees on the east side of South Main Street, county officials plan to turn the land over to the Winnebago County Forest Preserve District for use as a park.

Many homes on the island that was subdivided into lots for development in 1928 don’t meet zoning standards. The last new development was OK’d in 1973 because no new septic tanks are allowed on floodplains.

None of that matters to David Allvord, 37.

“They could offer me a million bucks,” Allvord said, and he wouldn’t leave his mobile home on the island.

Allvord, who worked as a fabricator, has been back on the island since 2010. He lived there from the late 1970s to the early 1990s — his dad has owned property there — before moving to Stillman Valley.

“It’s the best place,” Allvord said. “There’s no gunshots. No speeding. My kids can run up and down the street; everybody looks out for each other.”

On July 2, for example, his children Adrienne, 7, and Collton, 2, tooled around their riverfront property and the road in front of it in a toy mobile vehicle. Allvord said water has risen no more than a foot high on his property and hasn’t flowed into his home.

Skippy Woolbright, 63, also plans to stay put, despite a close call in 1997. He was treated at a local hospital and released after then-Blackhawk Fire Chief Brad Kinroth credited him with saving lives.

A Register Star story written in February that year said the Hillery family — parents and three children — were trying to cross rising floodwaters when their boat capsized.

“I saw the most horrible sight that you could ever see,” Woolbright said at the time. “A little girl floating down the river and her momma trying to hold on to her.”

He steered his boat toward them, shoved it into some brush so it wouldn’t float away, grabbed the woman and a child, lodged them against the boat, pulled on the brush and moved them to shore through the swift current.

Woolbright said the Hillery family has since moved off the island. Woolbright said he won’t.

“My dad built this house in 1950,” Woolbright said. “It’s where I grew up. It kept me out of a lot of trouble. My brothers and I would catch fish, squirrels. All my mom had to do was make biscuits and gravy.” Woolbright said he and his wife reared five children on the island.

Page 3 of 3 - Pat Taylor, 60, wants off the island, even though she said she “likes the birds, the nice days and the good people who have helped me.”

She is hoping there’ll be another buyout so she can get out of her home, which was once a church. She missed a filing deadline last time.

Taylor has lived on the island since 2003, when she paid cash for the place after going through a divorce.

“I thought I was buying this cool old church for a studio,” said Taylor, an artist who grew up in the Chicago suburb of Mount Prospect.

Problems surfaced. Last year, she was stuck in her house for six days when property surrounding her 1-acre lot flooded. She said the water was about 4 feet high in her basement, one of few — if not the only — properties on the island with a basement.

And before the 2008 flood buyout, some residents on the island sold drugs and some were thieves, she said. “They’ve gotten rid of the nasty people out here,” Taylor said. Many of the properties were occupied by renters, Dornbush said.

Dornbush said the county has applied for another grant through the Federal Emergency Management Agency to buy island properties. He is unsure whether or when the grant — handled through the Illinois Emergency Management Agency — might be awarded.

Joyce Crabb, 64, has lived on the island for 40 years.

She said her husband, who worked at a local foundry and died of cancer in 2011, didn’t want to leave. “He liked fishing and hunting.” She said she liked the island, too. “Everybody was like a big family.”

Crabb’s home was part of the buyout, she said. But the sale is tied up in court because of financial issues involving family members. Once the transaction is complete, she’s not sure whether she’ll buy a house in the Rockford area or move to Arkansas, where she has family.